You would be correct to conclude that I am still chomping my way through a small bowl of sour grapes after Scotland’s victory yesterday versus England. They will certainly be dancing in the streets of Calcutta today. Luckily, it was only rugby union and not football, in which case I would have been reaching for the strychnine long before the final whistle. I confess that in the event of an England victory I’d have enjoyed a smug smile at yet another defeat handed out to the Scots, but having seen ‘my’ team lose, there was no pleasure to be gained.
That England lost was one thing, but to lose playing such an ugly, predictable brand of rugby union was quite another. Essentially, what happened was this: every time England got the ball from a set piece or from recycled play, they booted away possession, the idea being that they’d swarm all, over the opposition and get it back. And then do the same thing over and over again. If they weren’t doing that, they were handing the ball to the forwards who rushed, head first, into the opposition forwards where everything stopped and – yes, England booted the ball again.
Scotland, meanwhile, tried occasionally to run with the ball. Yes, they employed similar tactics to England at times but just now and then a back got the ball and ran with it.
It’s impossible for me to be objective when England are playing because I am such a terrible loser but unlike ITV’s turgid commentary team, and particularly dull-as-ditchwater Big ‘Lol’ Dallaglio, I could not describe the game as “great”. I doubt that I would have been saying the same thing had England lost, but surely a great game requires two teams playing well. Someone said on social networks that at times the game resembled a chess match. Is there anything that could possibly be less boring that watching a chess match? I don’t think so.
The disappointment barely lasted a few minutes, rather than the days or even weeks, it would have stayed around had England been playing Scotland at football. Now that would have been a national disaster.
